Suddenly questioned, I hesitated.
Seeing my reaction, he gave a bitter laugh. “I guess so.”
Soejima-kun had been holed up in his room for many hours. Maybe he had redrawn the picture many times.
While recalling Kusunoki-san looking at the picture on the notepaper nostalgically, I asked, “Why did you draw a caricature?”
“Maybe because that’s how we started dating.” Soejima-kun answered, still staring at the notepaper, with a distant look.
“But memories weren’t enough.”
As Soejima-kun spat out these words, he crumpled the notepaper with the caricature drawn on it and hung his head as if to hide his face.
“We’re running out of time.” The words Soejima-kun muttered in a strained voice were a reminder of the time we had left. Standing beside Soejima-kun, who was silently hanging his head, I couldn’t move or say anything.
After stuffing the crumpled notepaper and envelope into his pocket, Soejima-kun lifted his face as if to shake off his wavering emotions.
“Let’s find another way to bring you back to life.”
When Soejima-kun lifted his face, he had the calm gaze he always had, like a completely different person from a moment ago. I hesitated to meet his eyes. Seeing me like this, Soejima-kun continued, “I’m sorry. I couldn’t ‘tie our fates.’”
I wondered why Soejima-kun was apologizing. The pain welled up in my chest all at once, seeing him not blame me at all.
“I’m sorry…”
As I whispered an apology almost inaudibly, Soejima-kun laughed, saying, “You cry so easily.”
More events that threatened to wipe away his smile followed.
Upon returning home that day, a cold wind blew in from the hallway window that had been left unlocked. We didn’t hear the footsteps that always greeted us.
Fuyu was nowhere to be found in the house.
We ran out of the house and searched around the neighborhood. Even as the day turned into a deep night, we couldn’t find Fuyu.
“Yuu!”
In my panic, Soejima-kun called out to me as I was running around aimlessly.
“Let’s go home for today. Fuyu might just be out playing and might come back.”
“But, if Fuyu…”
The image of Fuyu sprang into my head, and I couldn’t contain my anxiety. Soejima-kun gently said, “Don’t worry.”
He was putting up a front. He must be worried too. He was stifling his true feelings, not uttering any complaints or the truth. And the person making him do that was me, standing right here.
Looking back, ever since he met me, it had been one thing after another for Soejima-kun.
He was told by a suddenly appearing half-spirit—me—that I might die if we didn’t tie the fates, he got involved in my search for my memories, he lost someone important to him, and confessed his feelings to someone he’d been thinking about all along without any desire of his own and got rejected.
The only thing I could do for Soejima-kun, the purpose of my existence as a half-spirit who had made a contract with the listless man calling himself the God of Matchmaking, was to encourage him to form bonds.
If I can’t do that, what am I doing at Soejima-kun’s side? If I can’t come back to life, Soejima-kun will surely blame himself. Maybe all I’m doing is making Soejima-kun unhappy. Where is the light of hope?
The more I groped for the light, the more I got lost in the darkness. I felt despair, thinking I might be unable to escape from this abyss. I realized the only thing I could do was not to drag Soejima-kun further in.
On our way back home, Soejima-kun talked more than usual. He only chose trivial topics, such as interesting overseas dramas or new developments near the station. It seemed he hesitated to speak about the future. He knew it would only make him more anxious. He felt like his life was a dead end.
Even after a night, Fuyu didn’t come back. We posted “lost cat” signs in the neighborhood, reported to the health center and the police, and searched for Fuyu but couldn’t find her, even after several days had passed. I wasn’t focused on finding my memories.
I had been thinking all the time . How can I disappear from Soejima-kun’s life. That’s the only thing I can do for him.
Whether I was on the train, walking down the school road, or at school, that was all I thought about.
The first period of that day was a school-wide assembly. I went to the gymnasium with Soejima-kun, mixed in with the students walking down the hallway. Each class formed two lines in the gymnasium and lined up in attendance number order. At the end of the line, teachers were also standing. A PE teacher in a jersey, using a microphone, told the bustling students to be quiet.
The principal climbed onto the stage and started speaking. Hardly any students were seriously listening. Even Soejima-kun wasn’t listening to the principal’s speech. He looked for a moment toward a different class across the row. Kusunoki-san was standing in his line of sight, and my chest throbbed with pain.
It was natural. Just because he got rejected didn’t mean he could get over his feelings immediately.
I remembered the sight of Kusunoki-san, who had been staring at Soejima-kun intensely.
From the art preparation room and the window at the end of the hallway, I could see that Kusunoki-san was indeed looking at Soejima-kun. Was that just my misunderstanding? Then what was she intently looking at?
As I was looking at Kusunoki-san across from me, I noticed a sudden change. Her head swayed heavily.
“Eh…”
This was when Soejima-kun reacted to my muttered voice and turned his eyes to where I was looking. Through the gaps between the standing students, I could see Kusunoki-san falling to the floor like a puppet with cut strings. A female student standing behind Kusunoki-san let out a short shriek at the sight in front of her. A dull sound echoed in the gymnasium.
Starting with a short shriek, the voices of the students who noticed Kusunoki-san’s fall spread. The student rows broke as they tried to see what was causing the commotion. Voices overflowed, and students surrounded Kusunoki-san, who had fallen, forming a circle around her.
Soejima-kun was trying to get to the fallen Kusunoki-san, weaving through the students. I, too, slipped through the students. Soejima-kun stood on the outside of the students surrounding Kusunoki-san.
Immediately afterward, a young male teacher emerged between the surrounding students, carrying the fallen Kusunoki-san with somewhat unsteady steps. A female teacher and a PE teacher wearing a jersey who arrived late urged the agitated students to be quiet. The students’ agitated voices changed to whispers, and their gaze was focused on the young male teacher, who seemed somewhat unreliable, holding Kusunoki-san.
While returning to Soejima-kun’s class row, he and I, like the surrounding students, stared at Kusunoki-san being carried away by the young male teacher. When we could no longer see her, the principal resumed his interrupted speech, and the gymnasium gradually returned to its usual boring atmosphere.
As I was debating whether to go check on Kusunoki-san or stay next to Soejima-kun in the class row, I realized that there was nothing I could do either way. Absent-mindedly, I was standing there doing nothing, wondering what the point of my existence was.
I couldn’t read Soejima-kun’s feelings from his expression standing next to me. But there was no way he wasn’t worried about Kusunoki-san. It seemed like I would be swallowed up by a pessimistic feeling if I did nothing.
“Soejima-kun… I’m going to check on Kusunoki-san.” Breaking our promise not to talk in public, I spoke to Soejima-kun’s back and fled the gymnasium.
I walked through the empty corridor and slipped through the door of the infirmary. I passed by the dozing school nurse and approached the bed with the curtain drawn. As expected, when I passed through the curtain, Kusunoki-san was sleeping on that bed.
The sunlight filtering through the window curtain faintly illuminated Kusunoki-san sleeping on the white bed. Despite her mature features, Kusunoki-san looked like a young child when she was sleeping.
The white curtain, the white bed, and the light filtering through the curtain highlighted her beautiful sleeping face. It was as if she were sleeping in a bright light—the complete opposite of me.
This person… She could make Soejima-kun happy.
As I held down my bangs to hide my alien-like eyes, I felt miserable and desperately endured the heat welling up in my eyes.